This Island
by Rawkin Paradox
Summary: This island is full of ghosts, she thinks.Ghosts and lost souls. [Kairi Centric, with a little itty bitty bit of a Kaidus thrown in for spice.]


_**Character:** Kairi   
__**Prompt:**__ Reflection  
__**Summary:**__ This island is full of ghosts, she thinks. Ghosts and lost souls.  
**Word Count:**__ 775 (excluding everything above the title)  
__**Disclaimer:**__ Not mine.  
__**Note:**__ No explanation for this. It's weird, I'm weird, hey! It's a weird world after all. If you get it, you get it, and if you don't, try re-reading it or asking me.  
_

**This Island**

"_This island is full of ghosts_," she murmurs as she runs her hands across the cold, smooth, slate colored walls. The drawings they had craved into the ancient stones ages ago are still there, but the one that has caught her attention is the one she and Sora had drawn together – the one of them exchanging a papou fruit. She stops in front of it, and closes her eyes. A flood of memories come rushing back to her. Sora, with his dorky little grin, his pacific eyes shining with innocence. His child-like naivety, and the way he would bounce excitedly when they talked of leaving their little piece of paradise behind for worlds unknown. _Where is he now?_ she can't help but think. She remembers the races he and Riku would have; it was their way of determining whose decision they should follow. Ah, Riku, with his calm, cool demeanor, and his suave attitude. She smiles as she remembers the day he suggested they build the raft. They had been so foolish then, thinking that everything was going to be ok. _Oh, how she wishes she could have those days back.  
_  
She sits, alone, on the beach, (she is avoiding the tree where they had sat together so many times before) and watches the sunset (like they always used to do together). "_This island is full of ghosts_," she whispers, as memories invade and she watches visions of Sora, Riku, and herself go racing by, laughing as if they have not a care in the world. A tear slips down her cheek, but she holds her resolve. It's not until after Ghost Kairi, Ghost Riku, and Ghost Sora quit laughing and finish their game of tag, and she feels Tidus' hand on her shoulder and hears the concern in his voice that her walls break down and she finds herself sobbing into Tidus' shoulder as Selphie and Wakka exchange worried faces. They want to help, but they can't fight something that never existed.

"_This island is full of lost souls_," she tells Selphie, but her perky friend merely smiles and pays no heed to her words. Selphie _wants_ to help her, honestly, but she also _wants _to be a normal teenager with normal hobbies and normal friends. So she pretends to listen and pretends to know who these ghosts are and what Kairi means when she claims the island is full of lost souls, but she really doesn't know and she just doesn't know how to help her anymore. Kairi frowns; she knows Selphie's just pretending to care now. She knows she's not insane, regardless of what her friends might whisper behind her back. She knows that something's wrong with their island paradise, and it can't be fixed this time.

"_This island is full of lost souls_," she tells the nice, padded, white walls of the room they've placed her in. It's cold here, and the food's barely edible. Kairi spends her days thinking of her island, and her two beautifully broken ghosts. She knows she doesn't belong here; she knows that she belongs out there, with Sora and Riku. Her only problem is, she doesn't know where, exactly, there is. Wakka and Tidus visit often, and Tidus often reminds her that when she's better, they can be together again, just like they've always been. But she shakes her head. She wasn't always with Tidus. Doesn't any one remember the boy with amber colored hair and Pacific-colored eyes, Sora? Can't someone else remember the boy with the beautiful aquamarine eyes and the ghostly platinum silver hair, Riku? _Doesn't anyone remember_?

"_This island is full of ghosts and lost souls_," she tells them as the cool moonlight fills her old room. She's been released from her stay at the mental asylum (_prison_). They were waiting for her, just beyond the window's smooth, icy glass surface, like she knew they would be. They listen to her tale, and they nod in sympathy with their hands held out for her to take. "Everyone thought I was crazy, but I knew you were real…" she whispers. They smile, and she smiles, and _everything's going to be okay_, she thinks. _She grabs their hands and_…

"_This island has another ghost_," Selphie said as they watched Kairi's casket be lowered into the ground. Tidus and Wakka nod, and she wipes her eyes as the tears fall. "Why? What made her jump out of her window?" Tidus manages to ask amidst choked sobs. Wakka and Selphie can only shrug.

_In the shadows, Kairi smiles at her boys, and they smile back, and for the first time in a long time, she doesn't feel so alone and haunted anymore._


End file.
